Hermione: A History
by Regina lacrimarum
Summary: Lily Luna Potter writes a biography of Hermione and includes portions of Dr. Granger's letters. This is those letters with added commentary by Lily in parts .


A/N: This consists of a series of excerpts from a biography of Hermione that was written by her goddaughter. I'm trying to explain how Hermione came to be the way she did. It is AU in quite a few ways, most of which should be obvious.

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Excerpt from the introduction to _Hermione: A History_ by Lily L. Potter

My parents always told me to regard Hermione Granger as family, and so I did. She was the most loving of aunts, the best of friends, and the most loyal woman who ever breathed. She was also a fearsome opponent on the battleground and off of it, an uncompromising advocate for house elf rights, the most powerful witch of her age, and a legend in her own time. It is important when writing about her life to recognize both her public and her private side. Interspersed throughout the book are snippets from her personal papers, with omissions where I feel that to include certain material would be to jeopardize my godmother's privacy.

I have tried to give as fair an opinion of her as I can, but I am biased. This book is undeniably sympathetic; if you want a text that exposes Dr. Granger's deepest flaws, look elsewhere. This book aims only at enlightened tribute to a woman who deserved it.

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Excerpts from Chapter 1: Pre-Hogwarts  
1979-1990

On September 19, 1979, Hermione Jean Granger came into the world. Her parents, Daniel and Rose, were dentists in Surrey. They lived in a small, picturesque house, and Granger later remembered "I loved the roses...the neighbors were very nice."

By all accounts, the neighbors were indeed kind to young Hermione, but their children were not. It was clear from very early on in her life that Hermione was different; while other toddlers were enjoying the delights of balls and blocks, Hermione was studying her picture books. She taught herself to read, and was a competent reader by the time she was five. To the other children, this made her different, and they were very cruel to her.

...In one particular incident, a boy a year older than eight year-old Hermione mocked her for her bushy brown hair and her habit of carrying a book around with her. Rose Granger recalls, "She came into the house crying, and wouldn't tell me what was wrong until I'd made her three cups of tea. Her hair was tangled, and her book, _Peter Pan_, I think, was covered in mud. She was upset more because it was a library book than because of what had been said about her, but I couldn't believe the things he'd said. His parents felt awful about it, but it didn't stop."

In fact, it wouldn't stop until Hermione left four years later, ostensibly to attend a regular Muggle boarding school in Scotland.

...Hermione fared little better in school than she had running around her neighborhood. Classes were easy for her--she read all of her textbooks through at the beginning of each year, and later demonstrated an ability to recall the information whenever necessary--and her marks were perfect, but the social scene proved more difficult to master.

The other girls found Hermione overbearing, and she was probably very bossy. Teachers could find no fault with her manners, but none of them displayed any real affection for her, and some were even hostile. In general, they made no concessions to Hermione's clearly superior knowledge, making her sound out simple words along with the rest of the class, and responding to her occasional corrections with anger. She took to pretending she didn't already know all of the material being covered, and fell into the habit of taking copious notes, which were in reality totally unnecessary. They were her shield against mockery and misunderstanding.

This plea for compassion failed. Her notes were shredded or stolen more often than not, and she was several times compelled to watch in silence as another child handed in Hermione's work as her own.

Despite these setbacks, Hermione eked out a sort of happiness. She maintained near-perfect grades, and her family life was good. Her parents were both very proud of her, and when her paternal grandparents came to stay, she delighted in talking to Daniel Granger, Sr., about the Second World War, in which he had fought. Her father's mother, Jean, taught her to sew some and knit a very little, and her other grandparents, though indisposed and unable to make the trip to Ashton, sent her beautifully-bound books every Christmas.

Another bright spot in Hermione's world was Leonard Werth, a boy four years her senior. He often brought his Labrador retriever, Winston, to see her, and he encouraged this younger sister, Joy, to make friends with Hermione. These overtures delighted Hermione, whose scrapbooks contain innumerable accounts of conversations with "my brother Leonard." Later, when Hermione went away to school, she would tell her mother that it was Leonard she would miss the most.

Werth's kindness was probably as much for his own benefit as for Hermione's. He was a studious boy, and Hermione was very intellectually mature for her age. She may have been the only person in the tiny town who had both the time and the inclination to talk seriously with him, albeit with the simplicity inherent in any small child.

...When Hermione was seven, and her parents considered her old enough to walk the small distance from their house to the public library, she spent most of her time, outside of school, in that establishment, under the guardianship of Alice Prinkle, the librarian.

Mrs. Prinkle was an elderly widow who loved cats and children. She was particularly fond of her great-nephew, Leonard Werth, and his young friend Hermione Granger. She bent the usual five-books-per-child rule, allowing Hermione to borrow twice that number, safe in the knowledge that they would all be returned unharmed. It was Mrs. Prinkle who recommended _Peter Pan_,_ Whispering in the Wind, Through the Looking-Glass,_ and _The Secret Garden_. Hermione carried copies of these books with her throughout her life, reading them each once a year until her death.

It was from Mrs. Prinkle also that Hermione got the idea of writing poetry. Hermione had no talent for it, and had given it up by the time she went away, but for two years, from the time she was eight until she was ten, Hermione poured her loneliness, her curiosity, and her frank observations about life into her poems, and those that still exist reveal a startling range of emotions. A small selection, kindly donated by Granger's family, can be viewed at the British Wizarding Archives in London, under History of the Second Great War.

...Hermione was content in Ashton, going on as she had always done. She had no way of knowing that things were about to change drastically and permanently.


End file.
